Chapter 206: A Deal

Hectaire nervously swallowed.

“I want two things”

“Speak,” Kotori said.

“I want to know how you stopped me in the queen’s trial”

“Denied” Kotori instantly said.

The power she used to stop hectaire was the ace in her hole. And she didn’t have any intention of reveal that information.

“ok,” Hectaire said. Despite the rejection, his expression did not drop. Evidently, he did not expect to get an answer to this question. He face turned more nervous as he began to speak about his second request.

“May you pardon me?”

“Sure” Kotori said, lazily. She didn’t have any intention of pursuing the former candidates, even Zacariah who had fled not long after the trial finished.

“I promise you I won’t seek reveng-” Hectaire began to speak until Kotori interrupted him.

“Sure”

“eh?” Hectaire said, his face suddenly colored in surprise.

Kotori shrugged her shoulders.

“Should I care?” She asked.

“But… don’t you want to seek revenge?”

“Not in particular.”

“Oh…”

“THAT SCUMBAG LIED TO ME” Hectaire suddenly screamed.

Hectaire who was already a large man had an even larger bellow which echoed throughout the palace, there was the sound of a few shattering windows as the sound echoed.

[I’m certain that was enough to knock some earwax out of my ears] Kotori thought.

Kotori could only stare at him.

“Excuse me?”

“Zacariah told me you were going to hunt down the candidates once you consolidated rule,” Hectaire explained.

[Oh] Kotori suddenly realized as she heard the explanation.

Due to the multiple gag orders from the palace, there had been little to no information that had left the palace, and the only information that had left the palace were the tales of Kotori’s rage-fuel fits.

At that moment, Hectaire started to tear up.

“Nobody wants to work with me anymore. They all call me the coward who ran away from a queen’s trial.”

Tear began to fall and then he started to bawl.

“They also say that since I’m a loser I’m too dangerous to work with… I’m three months behind on rent, I can’t leave… My daughter lives here you know”

Watching the crying Hectaire, an uncomfortable sensation began to rise up in Kotori’s chest.

“Hic!”

[This is partially my fault] Kotori began to think, while a sense of awkwardness began to grow inside her. She began to pity Hectaire heavily and wanted to do anything to make him feel better.

[No, control it.] She said as she realized she was being influenced by Lala’s drug again.

“It’s okay… I’ll forgive you” Kotori said.

“if you tell me how to deal with this drug” She added.

Hectaire began to wipe away his tears.

“Ok, the secret is to indulge the emotion,” Hectaire said.

“Eh?” it was now Kotori turned to be confused.

“Yes, leaders need to be confident and decisive in their decisions. The point of the drug is not to suppress your emotions, but to be honest with them. A leader who is internally troubled will never be able to make proper decisions.”

As Kotori heard Hectaire’s explanation cogwheels began to turn in her head.

[That damn girl…]

Kotori realized that Lala had expected her to figure this out on her own. She began to wonder if the solution was really as simple as Hectaire made it out to be.

“Ok… You may leave then.” Kotori said.

As Hectaire began to walk away Kotori realized something

[I should try to put this into practice]

Taking the feeling of pity that welled up inside her.

“Give Hectaire some gold pieces,” Kotori said to a nearby attendant.        

Hectaire froze and turned to look towards Kotori with an extremely grateful expression.

“Thank you… My queen” He said.

Kotori gave him a small nod and watched his slowly disappearing back in as he left the throne room.

After the doors closed behind, him Kotori felt herself sink back into the throne and give a sigh. The throne of Eris was a gaudy thing, cushioned in fine leather and made of solid gold, adorned with various gems.

It was something that the previous queen has built for herself. Thinking back on the monetary struggle that Hectaire had, Kotori looked at it with some amount of disgust.

She stood up from the chair and the attendants near her rose to follow.

“Replace this chair, have it melted down and sold, take the money and donated to all the local orphanages,” Kotori told them.

The attendants only meekly nodded their heads not willing to enrage Kotori.

“As you wish my queen.”

Grabbing Kotori also grabbed Layla who was busy lounging on a nearby ottoman.

“Ah! Kotori What are you doing?” Layla said, her face turning into a blush.

“Mofu Mofu” Kotori said gritting through her teeth. The sight of Layla’s always sitting in the throne room annoyed her and watching her singular fluffy tail whip around always gave Kotori a sense of longing. An unresolved urge ever since she saw the giant tail of Okateratsu.

[I wonder how it feels to fluff that tail…] She would often think.

Still, if Hectaire was right that she should indulge herself more, that a true leader is honest with their feelings. Then Kotori was going to do just that.

Kitsura

Ah, it's been a while, hasn't it?

I considered naming this chapter "Milk and Cigarettes:, but I actually wrote half of it over a month ago and decided to leave the original title.

Don't worry I haven't forgotten about this webnovel yet. I tend to use this area as a place to blogpost, but I've been thinking about things lately and I decided that if I hiatus any longer this webnovel will never get finished.

I will try my best to finish it by the end of the year. There are only a few more arcs left and it's all plotted out it's mostly a matter of writing it at this. Cheers and I hope that we can maybe reach 1 million views on this one day. I don't make any promises that I'll be able to keep up the quality but I do want to have a finished webnovel and get to work on my other creative projects(vtubing mostly).

A lot has happened since I started this webnovel, and I've grown a lot as a person since I started writing, my writing not so much(lmao).  This is getting long but expect regular chapter updates as long as I can manage it before my IRL jobs kills me from stress(It's ok the term is ending in November).

I might be a publishing reject but at least I'm not a loser girl.

Once again follow my Twitter/Twitch for chapter updates or if you want to hear me pretend to be an anime girl online

https://twitter.com/KitsuraPls

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Best, 

Kitsura